Sara and Grissom: After the Blast
by an ex-tra ordinary parrot
Summary: Sara and Grissom's relationship as seen after the S3E17 Crash and Burn, Sara feels bent under all the pressures forced upon her. Will Grissom be there to help her through it?
1. Pop, Pop, Bang, Bang

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, produce, or have any incorporation with CSI. I just like doing fan fiction. I'm not, however, terribly interested in the Sara and Grissom Love Tango, but I'm only doing this story for a friend. Enjoy!

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Sara and Grissom: After the Blast

Chapter 1

"Sara, are you sure you're okay?" Nick asked, "I mean, I can drive you home, it's no problem."

Sara sighed, "Nick, that's really sweet, but I'm okay, honestly! See!" She twirled her bruised and bandaged body around to prove that all was well. She winced as a sharp needle of pain shot up her arm. She smiled at Nick. Nick smiled back at her in total disbelief, but Sara held her ground—she didn't want anyone's help.

"Alright then, take care of yourself," Nick said as he unlocked his SUV, "but you'll call me in case you do need help?"

"Yes."

Nick could hear the ring of falsity in her voice, but decided not to press her. Women could be stubborn creatures when they set their mind to it, and he wasn't one to press them. As Nick reversed out of the parking lot, Nick looked back at Sara and waved. Sara returned his salutations with her good arm.

After Nick had left, Sara looked around the parking lot making sure to scope anyone she knew, she didn't want any help. Thankfully, the parking lot was littered with anonymous faces and emergency personnel, so she began the painstaking sojourn to her car. Though she hadn't experienced the worst of the blast, her whole body felt like it had walked through an earthquake. Every sinewy muscle and bone felt raw and the radial pain in her arm was as persistent as a Bayou mosquito. All she wanted to do was go home, take some painkillers, probably have a malt whiskey, and lay her aching body to rest.

Finally she reached her car. She unlocked it and put the keys into the ignition. For a moment, she was actually afraid of switching it on, what if that blast wasn't just a coincidence? What if someone had set off that blast to target an individual and not just the whole C.S.I. lab? Her breathing came ragged and her heart beat raced. Putting bad guys away was all in the job of a C.S.I., but that didn't mean there weren't repercussions. The criminal always had revengeful loved ones or posse members who were just aching to do one for Pedro or Charlie or Johnnie or whoever the hell they were seeking redress for. It was never easy being an officer of the law.

"Cut it out, Sidle," she told herself, "nothing will happen. Stop it."

With the most deliberate care she could muster with shaky hands and an injured arm, Sara turned the key into the ignition. The car spurted to life. No boom, no pop, no backfiring. Letting a huge breath of relief, Sara wiped her dewy forehead and drove home.

She had to sit through an hour of traffic, not unfamiliar to Las Vegas, before getting to her apartment. She parked her car in her designated parking spot and walked through the double glass doors of her apartment complex. She didn't live in the swankiest building in the city. It was Las Vegas for crying out loud, every apartment complex whether big or small, bad neighborhood or good neighborhood had the same basic glitzy tawdry look to it: lots of mirrors, water-rich or water-deprived palm trees, fountains, marble (real or fake depending on how much your rent was), doorman or lack thereof, and either the most high-class elevator known to architecture, or the complete opposite. Sara knew she wasn't "rolling in the dough" per se, but she had enough of an income to afford a nice place.

"Hello, Ms. Sidle," chirped Noel the doorman as she stopped at his desk to retrieve her mail, "may I say you look like hell?" Noel was gay and proud of it, thus he made no qualms regarding his mannerism. Blunt, nosy, and openly vying for any good-looking man's attention, he was pretty much annoying.

"Yeah, so I've been told. Any mail for me?"

Noel rummaged through the slot shelf that stood behind him. He pulled out three envelopes from Sara's mail slot and handed them over to her. Two of the envelopes were work-related and the last one was a plain white envelope. It had a clean, crisp look one usually didn't associate with delivered mail, and it looked like someone had personally brought it.

The envelope was small, not the type used for tri-folded 8" by 11" letters, and it had no indentations anywhere on its smooth blanched surface. It smelled vaguely of a man's cologne, but then it had been a long time since she had smelled a man, so it could have been any kind of parfum. There was no return address and it had _Sara Sidle_ simply penned on the front.

Sara looked up expectantly at Noel, but he look quizzically back at her. "I'm as stumped as you, honey, personally," he began as he filed away at his manicured nails, "from what I've read, envelopes like this one usually indicate a secret love tryst." He smiled knowingly at Sara.

"Noel, can you be anymore fantastical?" Sara let out exasperatedly. "Love tryst? Have you seen me come in with any man for the past few months?"

Noel ran his hands through his sun-bleached hair, "Honey, you ooze sexually frustration like gay man in denial. If you want my honest-to-God opinion, you should be havin' a secret love tryst."

"Right, okay, bye, Noel." Sara gathered up her mail and walked away as Noel gave his toodles. She got into the elevator and pushed the button for the 5th floor. The ascent felt like an eternity.

Sara kicked off her shoes and threw her bag along with the mail onto the kitchenette's countertop. Pulling out a glass from the cabinet and swallowing down two Ibuprofens with water, Sara felt like she had a headache coming on. She reached for a beer from the fridge; she wasn't a real drinker, but she felt like she deserved to immerse her pains in an alcoholic haze. Nursing her beer, she sat down on the couch.

So many emotions swirled in her head, so many emotions that it seemed like a Technicolor Rainbow Convention was being held in her cerebrum. Downing the beer in one great chug reminiscent of her college days, Sara put down the empty bottle onto the coffee tablet and lay back on the couch. The old couch's springs groaned under the weight and her body equally groaned in retaliation. She closed her eyes and tried to dream.

But she could not—her mind, heart and soul would not let her. She was not unused to this emotional predicament. She was, admittedly, lonely like any other professional single woman, but the loneliness was eating at her heart. She imagined the loneliness being a worm and her heart being an apple, and just like in the funnies section, the troublesome kid always gave the teacher the apple with the worm inside. To her, that cartoon had a profound message: loneliness came with uncontrollable actions. She could not control her professional life, she had to earn a living, but it was her living that was inhibiting her from finding someone. Why was finding love so hard? Her mind instinctively thought of her parents. Though the memories were not good, as far as she could remember, whenever her dad had his sober moments, he and her mother looked so much in love with each other. Oh love, what she would give to at least savor it for a minute if not for an hour.

The letter. The letter than smelled like cologne. She immediately opened her eyes, and got up so quickly that all the nerves in her arm pinched and clamped down like a lobster. But she ignored the pain as she treaded to the kitchenette and picked up the pristine white envelope from the counter top. She sat back down and held the envelope with both hands.

She felt like she was sitting on pins and needles; anxiety was eating up at her. Who could have possibly sent her this envelope that was unmistakably of masculine origin? Hank? She laughed at that idea. Two-timing handsome Hank. Right. When hell freezes over and monogamy is beaten into all men. Old college boyfriends? The ones who cheated on her? Again the same dictum applied. What was the point in theorizing who had sent it if she did not open it. Gingerly grabbing a letter opener from a basket on the coffee table, Sara poised the knife.

The phone rang right as she was about to make the fatal cut. Putting down both knife and envelope, Sara reached for the cordless.

"Sara Sidle."

"Sara, are you well?"

Sara let out a small inaudible gasp. "Grissom?"

"I'm sorry for not checking back on you," apologized the articulate, intelligent male voice, "but I had to check on everyone and make sure the lab tech who got injured in the blast made it to the hospital."

Sara sighed inwardly. Grissom was the night-shift supervisor at the L.V.P.D. crime lab, and being that, it was his duty to take a status quo of all his subordinates. Even if he wasn't supervisor, he would have done it anyways.

"No, no," she finally said, "I'm fine, my hand hurts a little, but I took some painkillers. I should be fine by tomorrow. I'll be in. No sick day for me."

There was a pause on Grissom's side. "Actually Sara that's the reason why I'm calling you." Sara immediately felt disheartened.

"You want me to take leave," she said quietly.

"Just until you've completely healed both physically and mentally."

"Mentally? Grissom, what is that suppose to mean? I wasn't in the thick of the blast and I sure as hell wasn't scarred! I mean for God's sake, I've seen worst cases on the job that would mentally 'scar' me!"

Grissom's tone took a serious edge, "Sara, you know what I mean. For the past few days you've been looking out-of-sorts. You need a break."

"Are you trying to say that I'm mentally incompetent?" She was getting real angry now.

"Sara," Grissom continued in a voice that brooked no argument, "this job gets to even the best of us. All I am suggesting is a few days from work. Take this as an opportunity."

"Opportunity?" she repeated skeptically.

"An opportunity to do want your heart desires," he said cryptically before saying good-bye and hanging up.

Sara held the cordless tightly in her hands. "To do what my heart desires," she wondered aloud. Was fate finally shining down on her? Her gaze fell upon the small envelope. May be it was, she thought, as she started to open the envelope. May be it was.


	2. Blood and Jewels

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, produce, or have any incorporation with CSI. I want to take the time to apologize for my lack of understanding how Fanfiction worked, I had previously added Chapter 2 as a new story. Little did I know the Contents/Chapter Icon was wavering right in front of my eyes. Sorry for the literary inconvenience.

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The blunt edge of the letter opener was not working. The envelope was made of sturdy but elaborate stationery. Sara was not even sure there were any stores that sold stationery of this high-end quality in Las Vegas. Frustrated with the uncuttable envelope, Sara decided to go primal and used her fingers to tear off the top edge of the envelope.

"Ouch," she exclaimed as blood spouted from her paper cut. But she paid no heed and continued to open the envelope. Inside the envelope was a soft delicate paper of silvery sheen. Upon closer inspection, when she pulled it out, the paper was slightly transparent and soft to the touch. Blood from her cut had seeped into the letter creating an effect not unlike the time in the fourth grade when she had a nose bleed and had to mop up it up with a tissue.

She laid the soft paper down onto the coffee table, straightening it with her fingers. The lettering was not typed, it resembled hand printed calligraphy. Pretty old-fashioned, she thought to herself. She didn't know anyone who knew how to do calligraphy, let alone admit going to a calligraphy class. Sucking on her paper cut, she read the letter:

_The moon once had a lover,_

_By the sea,_

_Who proclaimed his love_

_With much vivacity,_

_Darling, I love you so_

_He said, but truly love should not keep_

_Our distance so far away _

_Steal away during the night_

_Shine your light on me so bright_

_Together our love shall conquer_

_The sun, the stars, and all the others_

_If our love naught be true_

_You and I shall never make it through_

"You can't be serious," she said to herself. The last time she had acquired a poetic love letter was during her junior year of college and even the whole roses are red, violets are blue attached to a bouquet of daises didn't make up for the fact her boyfriend had cheated on her with a high-schooler.

Sara felt startled by the poem—it was touching, but it felt very personal, too personal in fact. She felt somewhat violated that someone somewhere was sitting at his (or her, you just never know) desk penning romantic poems onto fancy paper with a gold-tipped calligraphy pen. Why on earth would someone be sending her love letters? She didn't know anyone who had the designs for her. The only places she circulated were work or the grocery store.

Like a true C.S.I., Sara turned the letter over if by chance there were any distinct markings or smudges. There were none. Next, she inspected the outside of the envelope. Aside from being spotted with her blood, there was nothing malicious about the envelope. She looked inside the envelope and caught sight of something: a small golden scarab no bigger than a thumb's nail. Holding it in her palm, the inanimate metal beetle was completely golden and had no other color aside from its iridescent blue wings. There was a small clasp protruding from the scarab's head so it could hang from a chain.

Jewelry and a love letter, two items sure to win a woman's heart, but a concoction for romance? Sara didn't think so as she clasped the little scarab onto the necklace she was wearing. She rather fancied the little guy, but she couldn't help but to think about where he came from and even the bigger question, who he would lead her to.

Sara brushed her teeth and changed into her pajamas. Lying awake yet again in her bed, she thought about the poem. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the poem, she felt a spiritual affinity for it. The moon and her lover by the sea spoke vowels, she could see a tragic Tristan and Isolde, a Romeo and Juliet, or a Heloise and Abelard. Why tragic lovers as the central theme of the poem she didn't know, but it had the right fit. Love was never easy and too many obstacles lay in the path of love. She had learned this the hard way. She learned that some men were unattainable and that loving them hurt more and more with each passing day. You could convince yourself that you were stronger without love, but who exactly were you kidding. Squeezing the tiny golden scarab gave her some hope that life was going to take a turn for the better. Soon, Morpheus claimed her tired body and she drifted of to sleep.


	3. The Promise of Flowers

DISCLAIMER: I do not own, produce, or have any incorporation with CSI. To all those people who have read my previous chapters, I know its been a LONG time since I've last written! I sincerely apologize to all those folks who were waiting for next chapter, and I most sincerely apologize to the friend who I promised to write this story for. But please, everyone, enjoy this! Thanks!

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_Has it really been three days? _The man thought to himself. He scratched his chin absentmindedly; he could feel the growth of his beard prickly and coarse like a porcupine. His body ached and not because of old age, no not that, he constantly reminded to himself. He seldom thought of himself as an old man. Pretty ironic considering when he was younger he always felt like a 30 year-old trapped in a ten year-old's body. Oh but now he _was_ older—that was the inescapable truth. 

The man got up from his bed. He lived in a small one-roomed apartment. It was spartanly furnished, the absence of a dining table indicated his martial status (washing dishes had never been so easy), and the number of books that graced the living room's shelves amassed to rival the population of a small Pacific island. However underneath the seemingly sparse but tome endowed apartment lay the fine dusting of loneliness.

He splashed cold water on his face. The briskness of the water woke him up like a jolt of caffeine to the cerebrum. Ignoring his reflection in the mirror (he wasn't a vain man), he brushed his teeth and slathered on shaving cream. Slowly he began to shave away the last three days. It was all so confusing, the haziness and the clarity of the past events. He drew the razor along his jaw, rinsed it, and then drew it again. The monotony of the motion lulled him into a false sense of comfort.

"Oh no…" he grunted as he put down the razor and hurriedly calmed the cut with cold water. He had nicked himself and the warm red blood trickled down his neck, staining his white t-shirt. He grimaced at the sight of the blood against the white. Looking up at his reflection, he saw the terror of his nightmares come to life.

Sara woke up the next morning surprisingly refreshed. She felt a few kinks in her body from the accident, but overall she felt better physically than she had in months. She showered, changed her clothes and explored her near-empty refrigerator for breakfast. Finally settling for a glass of orange juice and a two-day old apple Danish, she sat down and opened the newspaper. Reading the _Las Vegas Sun _was always a novelty for Sara. Reading the _Sun_ was like reading the achievement's column and finding your star athlete kid listed there, if you considered solved crimes your children. _Man Found Lynched on Paradise Road_ read one headline. The unfortunate man found lynched, 22-year-old Walter Prufrock, true to his surname, was a maniac depressive with one twist: the Mafia had a hit out on him. Sara and Warrick had been at the scene and it was not as the _Sun _described, "a quasi-Soprano act of mediated violence featured in a picturesque backdrop of the Wynn Golf Club, which by the way is an excellent…" Poor skinny, miserable Prufrock (even more pathetic after death) made a life of double-crossing the wrong people, and this time the wrong people got to him.

Today, however, no Walter Prufrocks, dead hookers, or murdered rich tycoons for that matter, the news was clean as a whistle.

"The crime lab must be quiet today," she said to herself as she took a bite from her Danish. Putting down the newspaper and finishing the rest of her breakfast, Sara was interrupted by a knock at the door.

"Hello-oooo, Sara! Rise and shine!" greeted Noel as Sara opened the door.

"Hi Noel, how's your morning?" Sara inquired politely. Noel sometimes went door to door in the mornings to catch the building's sleepy occupants off guard in an effort to get people to join his "causes". The last cause of Noel's was GPATS, aptly abbreviated to mean Gay Persons Against Tacky Suits. Apparently, some rich (eligible) men had bad fashion sense, and Noel decided to "help" them out of the abundant goodness of his bottomless heart.

"So what's the campaign today?" Sara asked while leading Noel to the couch. As she sat down, she saw that Noel was holding a glass vase that contained artfully arranged purple and lavender flowers. He set the purple flowered vase right in front of Sara on the coffee table. He sat down and reached out to grasp Sara's hands with his in a conspiring embrace. Noel then began to stare at Sara, a strange mark of bemusement etched in his smile and a twinkle in his eye—he looked moronically prophetic, as if he had a great and terrible revelation to reveal. Sara began to inch away near the wall where she had a baseball bat hidden.

"Noel," she started hesitantly, "please tell me you've become straight and that you've brought me flowers to show your budding affection?"

Making a face, Noel pulled his hands away. "Honey, I wouldn't become hetero for all the purple scarves in the world! Unless it was a really nice scarf by Versace or Gucci…"

"Okay than what are you doing bringing me the flowers?"

"Oh well you see, little old me was organizing the mail shelf with my back turned. And when I turned around, these flowers were on my desk," his eyes then became wide as saucers, "I thought the flowers were from Andrew, you remember him right? No? Oh well Andrew was my last squeeze. He's British… oh that Earl Grey Tea accent…but I digress, so there was a note attached to the flowers," he gestured to the note tied with a ribbon to one of the purple flower's stalk.

Reaching out for the note, she realized that it was made of the same paper quality as the envelope from her secret admirer. But this note was not written in calligraphy, it was just regular neat print. The handwriting was so neat she wasn't sure it was from a man or a woman.

_It must be from my mysterious admirer who left me the scarab_, Sara thought to herself.

"Noel," she asked meditatively, "are you sure you didn't see anyone? I mean, I doubt anyone could just pop in and out without you noticing. Even when your back was turned," she added.

Puffing his chest up like a hubristic rooster, Noel leaned in conspiratorially, "Well, I didn't want to seem paranoid, but I did go straight outside once I saw the flowers on my desk. You know with all these banana cuckoo people dropping things here and there on other innocent," Noel interrupted his narration to point to her, "people, I decided to go Dick Tracy."

"And what did you see?" Sara asked.

"Well that's the unfortunate bit. Just as I went outside, a flashy red Volvo zoomed by. It was driving out so fast, I couldn't even catch its license plate number, although I'm sure it was a vanity plate. So blasé." Noel furrowed his Botoxed brow with an afterthought. "You know I should really ask the county to put up a speed limit sign or something."

Sitting back into the soft contours of the couch, Sara wondered to herself who in the world could this person be. First, the admirer sent her a poem with a jeweled scarab, and now he was leaving flowers and taking off in a flashy European car. If this didn't sound like a prelude to any of the romantic novels she would put down halfway, she didn't know what this was. She had to hand it to her mysterious admirer, he most certainly got her attention.

Noel finally left her after ten minutes of gossiping about the new couple who had moved down in the recently vacated apartment on the first floor. Promising him that she would do lunch sometime to talk more in detail about the conspicuous couple and then shooing him out the door, Sara sat back down on the couch. She was still holding the note in her hand. _No use putting this off, I'd better read it_, she thought resignedly to herself.

"The view may be heavenly, but the love is divine," read the note, "Come to the observation deck of the Stratosphere Tower at 9 PM tomorrow."

"A date, huh?" she said at loud, "You sure move fast, mystery man."

Chuckling softly and placing the card gently upon the coffee table, Sara got up to rearrange the flowers in vase. They were quite beautiful. These flowers were rather exotic considering her expertise in flowers, which was nil—she only knew the names of common flowers sold in floral shops, like rose, petunias, daffodils, or lilies. The glass vase contained dark purple flowers with large petals that were sharp and triangle, each petal had a velvety parfum texture richer than any silk. These smaller ones could have been any ordinary wildflower, but next to their darker and larger sisters, the purples, were magnificent in their unfurled glory. Each tight little lavender bud had a slight twist, as if one peeled back the leaves, you'd almost expect a pixie or a fairy queen to pop out and wag its finger at you for disturbing it. Sara liked these flowers and they appealed to her style: beautifully simple.

Sara shook her herself to relieve her head of the profuse emotion swirling inside—it was near exploding with the thought of a love that she wasn't sure of, a man she did not know, and the confusion of it all. Stroking the softness of the flowers, she wondered why she didn't feel apprehensive. Quite strange actually, in this day and age, an unknown admirer could be a stalker or some newly released serial killer looking for a pen-pal. Yet, Sara did not doubt the veracity of the admirer's emotions—he seemed honest and eager to have his feelings reciprocated, but knew not to border on the edge of creepiness.

"Tomorrow," she promised herself, "tomorrow we will see." So with that, Sara started her day with a smile on her face. The hopes of tomorrow were only a day away.


End file.
